


napom, fényes napom

by phyripo



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: F/F, Friends to Lovers, Rare Pairings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-06
Updated: 2018-03-06
Packaged: 2019-03-27 21:54:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13889892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phyripo/pseuds/phyripo
Summary: During less than a decade but spanning two millennia all the same, Hungary learns that she’s been missing out by not having gotten to know Belarus better, and she finds that maybe they’re just each other’s thing.





	napom, fényes napom

**Author's Note:**

> You can also read this on [tumblr](http://phyripowritesthings.tumblr.com/post/171141584005/was-supposed-to-be-something-written-for-this) :0
> 
> The title is a Dalriada song, because I really love Dalriada, and means 'my day, my bright day'. I'm starting to really like this pairin g

They’d never spoken much before. Hungary remembered Belarus mainly, when she thought about it, as the figure in someone’s shadow. Poland’s, Lithuania’s, Russia’s.

It was odd how fast things could change. Even after all this time, it never failed to astound her.

Here she was, on the brink of another new century – well, it was a year or five away yet, but that didn’t mean much to Hungary at this point – and feeling like it’d been five hundred years instead of hundred since this one had begun.

Still, everyone seemed to have found their footing after four years  _out_ , and Hungary watched with genuine curiosity and some amount of pride while they did. While Estonia started speaking Estonian overly loudly and talking about mobile phones with Finland, while Latvia slowly unfolded himself, little Moldova started growing up at an alarming rate, Prussia ‘shut the fuck up that’s my name’ became despondent, and Belarus – well, Belarus came out of the shadows, and even though she didn’t smile much, she seemed happier too.

It helped that she sat next to Belgium at many meetings, probably, because Belgium was just as brightly mischievous as Hungary remembered her always having been.

All things considered, things were looking up, and Hungary was quite sure the twenty-first century would have a lot to offer.

But first, it seemed as though she had a good deed to do in the more immediate future.

Belarus, now with her light hair in a high ponytail and wearing a skirt probably too short for an official meeting – but who cared about dress codes when Austria was still wearing that fucking cravat – was talking to America by the doors. America, for his part, looked animated and exactly the same as he always had except for his glasses, while Belarus just looked uncomfortable.

Hungary couldn’t blame her. America was nice, and he’d evidently grown into his role as a superpower, but  _fuck_ , was that guy loud.

“So I told him, yeah,” he was half-yelling now, “you  _know_  it’s all about—”

“Belarus!” Hungary said, jovially, and the woman immediately glared at her before schooling her face into a more neutral expression. “Don’t tell me you forgot about our – dinner meeting!”

As she opened her mouth to say something, America burst out with, “Oh man, Belarus, you should’ve told me you had a thing! I wouldn’t have kept you!”

She gave him a flat look. “You didn’t give me much of a chance to say anything.”

Hungary pressed her lips together to stifle a laugh at America’s answering expression.

“Sorry?” he eventually said, adjusting his glasses. Belarus just quirked her thin eyebrows and turned to walk away without another word. Why had Hungary never bothered to talk to her before? She was obviously the  _best_. With an apologetic glance in America’s direction, Hungary followed her into the hall, where she caught up after a small sprint.

“Thank you,” Belarus said. She was keeping a brisk pace. “That guy talks to me like I’m not twice his age. It’s tiring.”

Hungary chuckled. “I think he grew up too fast.”

“That doesn’t bode well for Germany.” She seemed to realize what she’d said. “I suppose he’s past that already.”

He really was, Hungary thought, vaguely proud in a motherly way of who Germany was becoming still.

“Well, hey,” she said instead of commenting on that, “I don’t suppose you actually wanna go and have dinner with me?”

They’d reached the elevator. Belarus pushed the call button and turned to Hungary, considering.

“I don’t see why not,” she eventually said. “My boss wants me to connect with people, anyway.”

They stepped into the elevator when it arrived. There were some humans in it, standing quietly on opposite ends, and Hungary realized she had no idea what to call Belarus in public. Would she still be using the same surname as Russia as she had been the last time Hungary had known a human name of hers? She herself was planning on cycling through nice Hungarian names for the foreseeable future. She’d have to ask.

“So, dinner?” she just said now, breaking the humans’ silence.

“Dinner. But not right away. I have to change.”

Hungary nodded, then glared at the man-in-suit on the other end of the elevator when he unsubtly leered at Belarus. To her satisfaction, he promptly pressed a button and got off on the next floor.

Once on the ground floor, the two of them agreed to meet back in an hour.

“Hey, by the way,” Hungary remembered just in time, “what’s your human name? I can’t go around calling you Belarus all the time.”

“You could go with Bela, that’s a pretty universally accepted name,” she replied drily. “In case you forget. But I go by Nadzeya Alyakhnovich nowadays.”

“Nice.” So she  _had_  gone the Belarusian route. Hungary liked her more by the second. “You can call me Hun, but people might misunderstand that.”

Belarus’s lips twitched ever so slightly.

“I’m Héderváry Erzsébet.”

“Good. I’ll see you then,  _Erzsébet_.”

Hungary smiled. “See you, Nadzeya.”

* * *

Very quickly after that day, Hungary decided that she’d definitely been missing out all those years by not being friends with Belarus. Everything about her was sharp, in both appearance and demeanor. She always had some acerbic remark ready – Hungary began to understand why Belgium was always stifling laughter during meetings – and spared no one, herself included. It had the potential to be massively alienating, and maybe Hungary was a masochist or had just spent so much time listening to Austria’s bitching over the centuries that she’d become used to it, but she liked spending time with her on a purely personal level. Moreover, she got the feeling Belarus liked her as well, and evidently, that was high honor.

Over time, it became a bit of a tradition to have dinner when they met, sometimes accompanied by Belgium or Liechtenstein or Estonia or, on one memorable occasion, Romania, who neither of them invited and who did nothing to make Hungary like him any more except be the perfect subject for Belarus’s barbs. They hadn’t seen him again after that.

They didn’t really talk about politics beyond the formalities, mostly because Belarus hated it. Hungary didn’t mind. It was a nice reprieve.

“Hey,” she said one day, now really on the cusp of the new century. A new  _millennium_. “Have you ever been to Budapest?”

“I don’t think so, no,” Belarus replied. She was sprawled in the most un-ladylike manner in her chair and was ignoring everyone throwing disapproving looks her way. Hungary was impressed and – no point denying – weirdly turned on by it.

“Would you like to come over?” she asked, ignoring the feeling with practiced ease. She was turned on by many things; it just so happened that those things touched on a lot of aspects of Belarus as a whole.

“To Budapest? Is there a special occasion?”

Hungary shrugged. “The special occasion can be you coming over.”

To her satisfaction, that earned her a chuckle.

“I’ll expect the flags to be raised, then,” Belarus said.

“Only the best for you, Nadzeya.”

“You flatter me.” She pushed her hair out of her face and tucked it behind her ear. Her earrings were shaped like swords. “I’d like to come, though I’ll expect you in Minsk in return.”

Hungary smiled. “Evidently.”

“Good.” She put her boots on the seat opposite hers. “Maybe we can go to the ballet.”

* * *

They did actually go the ballet in Minsk in the end, although the most interesting part of it was how enraptured Belarus, still wearing those combat boots with her long black dress, was by it. Briefly, Hungary considered introducing her to Monaco, who still did ballet as far as she knew, but she refrained partly because the thought of Belarus waltzing into Monaco’s stylish life with her boots and her dark eye shadow and her often crass demeanor was mildly terrifying on both their behalves, and partly because it made Hungary feel  _jealous_.

Great, she’d gotten to that point again.

For a nation, Hungary sometimes thought she felt things too strongly. Often, feelings were diluted through all their people, but – maybe because of her age, she didn’t know – Hungary had become very good at separating the independent part of herself, the part that was perhaps less  _Magyarország_  and more Héderváry Erzsébet, or whatever her human name happened to be at the time, from her citizens.

Case in point; she’d grown rather attached to Belarus, who liked her, yes, without a doubt, but in a way that would make her open to maybe pushing their relationship to a less platonic level? She was hard to read and always seemed to scoff at other nations in romantic relationships besides.

Then again, she scoffed at lots of things.

Moreover, Hungary decided eventually, about a week into the new millennium, Hungary wouldn’t be Hungary if she didn’t man up – in a manner of speaking, of course – and did something about it.

“Erzsébet. Hey, Erzsébet.  _Hungary, for fuck’s sake_ ,” Belarus hissed. “What are you  _doing_?”

Innocently, Hungary undid another button of her blouse and waited for the waiter to return.

“Nothing much,” she replied. “You?”

“I’m watching your tits almost fall out, is what I’m doing,” she said, and Hungary choked on her laughter so much that when the waiter did return, he was asking if she needed a doctor instead of if she was single, which would have maybe made Belarus jealous in return. It wasn’t a very good plan, but Hungary knew that kind of thing wasn’t her strongest suit, and she’d embraced that.

“I mean,” said Belarus, later as they walked back to Hungary’s house, because somehow visits to and fro had also become commonplace, “not that I’m opposed to tits, you see. It’s just I think you were going to give that guy a heart attack.”

“I’m sure he’d have survived.”

“Kinky,” she commented. Hungary snickered.

“Poor me, I almost killed one of my own people.”

“You did. You know what that calls for?” And, without waiting for an answer, “Drinks.”

And so they got drinks, and  _god_  Hungary was too old for this, but Belarus wasn’t much younger and drinking heavier stuff besides, so they ended up equally sloshed and waxing poetic about various improbable kinky things until someone kicked them out.

“I haven’t been drunk in 200 years,” Belarus told her, leaning against her side on the bus back home. It was empty but for the two of them. The city was dark.

“What, really?” Hungary exclaimed. Then, in a lower voice, “Not even after you, you know—” she made a show of peering at the driver to make sure he couldn’t hear them— “became independent?”

Belarus hummed. “Drinking’s more of a sad thing for me.”

“Are you sad now? Nadzeya?”

She smiled then, more brilliantly than Hungary had thus far seen.

“I’m happy,” she said. “At least right now.”

“Good,” said Hungary.

“You make me happy,” she added, and Hungary rested her head on her shoulder. It was pointy, but she decided that that was alright.

She managed to doze off, and then had no idea where they were when Belarus noticed and shook her awake. Of course, it wasn’t difficult to find the way back when she focused just a bit – this was  _her_ , she knew every single alley in the country – but it still caused them to be rather sober by the time they finally arrived at her house.

“Hey, Belarus?” Hungary asked, rubbing her tired eyes and yawning.

“Yeah?”

“Do I really make you happy? I mean, not just when I buy you drinks.”

Belarus looked at her very intently with those strange, beautiful eyes of hers, violet and dark blue like the sky just before dawn. Her makeup had smudged, but Hungary thought she looked rebellious and a little wild, which was just her thing, so that was alright. Besides, she probably wasn’t much better herself.

“You know what they say about drunk people,” Belarus eventually said, with an affected shrug.

“Good,” Hungary replied faintly. “You make me happy too.”

“And for the record,” Belarus added, even as she was lying down on the couch in the small living room without taking her boots off, “I’d have loved to see your tits.”

Hungary appreciated it.

* * *

 

Things were different after that night, even if not by so much. Belarus seemed more willing, somehow, to be less  _Byelorussia_  and more Nadzeya Alyakhnovich. At least around Hungary. Or Szőke Anikó now, as it were, because that was the next name on her list and thus the one she’d adopted when her passport reached the end of its validity.

“I like Anikó. It sounds happy,” Belarus commented when Hungary informed her of the change.

Romania, for his part, got into a fight with her about her surname meaning the same as his, which was hilarious.

“Maybe we should all change our names to that,” Belarus said to that. “But I still have a few years of Nadzeya left.”

It was just as well, because it suited her.

They ignored the politics even more the more they spent time together, choosing that new kinship over their bosses’ wishes and whatever their people thought of each other. Which wasn’t much, really.

“That’s strange, isn’t it?” she asked Belarus, hoping for an insight into her mind.

“That our people don’t really have an opinion of each other?”

“But that we do.”

She shrugged. “I’ve never thought about it much, but we’re still partly human or something. No one can tell me who to like.”

“And you like me.”

“ _Yes_ , Hungary, I like you.” Belarus raised her eyebrows. “If that wasn’t clear, you need to pay more attention.”

Hungary laughed and pushed her shoulder against her upper arm.

“I like hearing you say it,” she said, trying to sound teasing or something, but she got the feeling it came out too earnest by far.

The door to the meeting room they were waiting in front of finally opened, and impatient, grumbling nations started shuffling inside. Belarus stood up, smoothing down her skirt. Hungary did as well, starting to walk away when she was caught by the elbow and faced with Belarus’s tall form looming over her. She started to open her mouth to ask if there was a problem when Belarus forestalled her.

“I  _like you_ , Hungary,” she said, and then, without warning, leaned forward and kissed her cheek before turning and walking into the meeting room wordlessly as she was wont to do.

Hungary stared after her for a long moment, glowing but confused, until she was almost bowled over by Portugal running to the door and had to hurry inside.

Throughout the meeting, Belarus studiously avoided looking her way, instead striking up a seemingly animated conversation with Belgium. She was  _infuriating_ , and damn it, that was also Hungary’s thing.

Then again, apparently, maybe,  _seemingly_ , Hungary was Belarus’s thing as well.

She grinned until Iceland worriedly asked if she was alright from next to her, and the poor guy was usually afraid of her, for some reason.

“I’m grand,” she told him, which didn’t seem to make him feel better and had him scooting closer to Ireland instead. Hungary snickered.

When that meeting was finally over, she was cornered by Poland for a good ten minutes before she managed to get away and had no idea where Belarus had gone.  _Fuck_. It could be months before they met in person again, and she hated fumbling with her mobile phone and its stupidly tiny buttons when it came to important messages. She kicked the door, which was childish and hurt her foot, and didn’t even achieve anything.

“If you’re done abusing the building,  _Szőke_ ,” Romania drawled from behind her, in Romanian, “your terrifying girlfriend has gone to the lobby downstairs.”

Hungary turned and narrowed her eyes at him, suspicious. To his –  _ugh_  – credit, he didn’t shrink away.

“Just saying. I thought it might get you out of here sooner, is all.”

“Wow, thanks,  _Bălan_ ,” she intoned, in Hungarian, fighting the impulse to demonstratively stay there, instead taking off. She’d get him if he was fucking with her.

But he wasn’t. Belarus was indeed in the lobby of the conference center, hanging around her sister and the Baltics, cleaning her dark nails instead of listening or contributing. She stood out, not because of her height or her light hair – not next to Ukraine and Estonia – or even her dark clothes or those eternal boots – because poor Latvia was having some sort of goth period; Hungary wasn’t sure about the terminology, but he was looking very dark – but just  _because_.

Just because she demanded attention with her sharp features and dark eyes. Hungary had seen Lithuania looking; she wasn’t blind. And she liked Lithuania, she really did, he was kind and intelligent and still her blood boiled at the thought of him now, almost as much as it did at the thought of Romania at any given moment. It wasn’t a very good trait, but there it was.

And there Belarus was, and she’d noticed Hungary and was smirking in a challenging way, as if Hungary would be taken aback by the other nations or the humans in the lobby. No way. She started marching over.

“Nadzeya!” Hungary said.

“Anikó,” Belarus returned, earning her a mildly confused look from Lithuania and Latvia, who hadn’t heard about that new name of Hungary’s yet. “Anything I can do for you?”

“Absolutely.” She didn’t slow until she was far too close to Belarus. She smelled subtly sweet, as always sweeter than expected.

“And what, then?”

“You owe me a favor,” Hungary said, unsure where she was going with this, but following her impulses usually got her where she wanted to be in the end. “I rescued you from America.”

“Eight years ago, yes.”

“You don’t agree?” She shook her hair out of her face and raised her eyebrows at Belarus, ignoring the tittering Baltics and Ukraine next to them.

“I think maybe you owe  _me_  a favor. Remember when I stopped you from flashing that waiter?” They were drifting closer still. Someone snickered next to them. Probably Estonia.

“Like you wouldn’t have liked it if I did,” Hungary challenged.

In response, Belarus dipped her head and said, in an undertone undoubtedly loud enough to be heard by their audience, “Maybe that is why I want a favor, Anikó.”

“Oh, you’re good,” she said, while Latvia was choking on something.

“I  _know_.”

“How about we call it even?”

Belarus looked down at her, considering, dark eyes intent on Hungary’s face. Her gaze burned a trail of fire where it went.

“I don’t think so,” she eventually said, and then she was sliding long, cold fingers over Hungary’s jaw and into her hair, and Hungary could only slip her arms around her back in return lest they be trapped between them, and then nearly groan in frustration when Belarus refrained from kissing her just shy of their lips touching, breath hot on her face. Her light hair was falling against Hungary’s shoulders, and was it her or had the lobby gotten quieter?

“Kiss me,” Belarus said.

“As a favor?” she whispered. She wouldn’t admit that the commanding tone did something to her insides – at least not yet.

“Because you want to, or not at all.”

“Better.” So Hungary did, and she didn’t even care that all the humans in the lobby saw, or that Lithuania now also sounded like he was choking, just arched her back and put her hands flat on Belarus’s back to pull them close together. That was good. It had been a very long time.

“You still owe me a favor,” she told Belarus when they parted.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll think of something fitting,” Belarus replied, with a sharp grin that sent tingles up Hungary’s spine.

Just her thing.


End file.
